1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electrical card connectors, and more particularly to an electrical card connector with a structure preventing troubles caused by electro-static discharge (ESD).
2. Description of Related Arts
With a digital development of the electric technology, removable electric products that are taken away with people themselves, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Digital Still Cameras (DSC) or etc, are more and more popular. The electric product requires an electrical card for storing message, and then transferring information between the electric product and another one. An electrical card connector is usually assembled on the circuit board of the electric product, and transferring information between the electric card and the circuit board. Static electricity is generated and retained on a metal shield of the electrical card connector when the electrical card is inserted. The static electricity may cause damage to the electrical card and even damage to the circuit board of the electric product. Therefore, the durability of the electrical card and the electric product are lowered by the static electricity.
Electrical card connectors existing in market usually form grounding elements for discharging the static electricity away from the metal shields of the electrical card connectors. A grounding element of an electrical card connector forms a first board with an upper surface contacting with an assembling portion and a second board with a lower surface contacting with a grounding piece of the circuit board, therefore, the metal shield comes in contact with the grounding piece of circuit board in virtue of the assembling portion and the grounding element for grounding purpose. The electrical card connector additionally forms a fixing portion on the insulating housing for fastening the grounding element therefore, it is difficult and troublesome for molding and also, it is material-wasting because of a two-layer framework of the grounding element.
Another electrical card connector having a grounding element is a SMT-type card connector. A pair of soldering pads is formed at two lateral sides of the insulating housing, with bottom surfaces soldering with the circuit board. However, bottom surfaces of the soldering pads are limited according to a miniaturization of the electrical card connector. For another reason, the electrical card connector is a reverse type card connector, in assembly, the electrical card connector is firstly soldered on the circuit board, and secondly, the electrical card connector is sent to go through a second Infra-red Reflow (IR Reflow), which may cause a melt of soldering material between the soldering pads and the circuit board and then, cause the electrical card connector to fall down from the circuit board.
Hence, an improved electrical card connector is desired.